New Year Honours: Dame Jane Campion a trailblazer behind the screens

Director Jane Campion. Photo / AP

Dame Jane Campion, DNZM

• Dame companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to film.

Jane Campion is a household name, though her career was built behind the scenes.

A woman of many talents, she has carved out a name as a formidable screenwriter, producer and director.

The New Year's honour follows a long list of achievements, some of which have made history.

Campion became the first female to win a Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for her short film Peel in 1986.

She was the second woman ever to be nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards and brought home an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay thanks to her moving 19th century drama The Piano.

Her feature debut Sweetie (1989) won the Georges Sadoul prize for Best Foreign Film and many other awards around the world.

The follow-up biopic of writer Janet Frame, An Angel at my Table, garnered seven prizes, among them a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1990. It was also given accolades at the Toronto and Berlin Film Festivals, another American Independent Spirit Award, and was named most popular film at the 1990 Sydney Film Festival.

Her 2013 mini-series Top of the Lake landed her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination, the same year she was presented with a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate.

Dame Jane was instrumental in establishing an annual scholarship programme for women through the New Zealand Film Commission this year.